The Four Colors of the Eye
35. Lord of the world, with Your permission, I will come to reveal Your hidden secrets. “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law,” to praise Your bride with these corrections and to praise all those who are hanging from her, who are inscribed from the Shechina, who is the gate to come in to You, to behold Your face, which is Tifferet.
She is Your beauty. It is written about her, “You are beautiful, my wife; you are beautiful, your eyes are doves.” Indeed, as doves, embroidered in their bodies, in their wings, and in their tissues, they are distinct from the rest of the birds.
36. Your eyes are as doves because among all the birds, there are none who are as loyal to their owner as the dove. “Your eyes are doves,” eyes that are protruding outwards, that look straight to her husband. The wings of the dove are the eyelids. With them, the dove flies to her husband, and they are called “doves.”
37. From the side of Hesed, right line, the eyes are white. The white in the eye is Hesed. They are red from the side of Gevura, the left line, green from the side of Tifferet, middle line, and black from the side of Malchut, of whom it is written, “I am black, and lovely.” Red, green, and black in the eye are from the side of Gevura, Tifferet, and Malchut.
38. The white in the eyes is like settings of silver, as it is written, “apples of gold in settings of silver.” It is like the white in the rose, Hesed. The red in the eyes is like apples of gold, like the red in the rose, Gevura. The green in the eyes comprises both colors: red and white. The black in the eyes is the beauty of the Torah, which is black and beautiful, meaning Malchut, as it is written, “I am black, and lovely.”
39a. In the white colors, she is “as fair as the moon.” In the red color, she is “as clear as the sun.” “As awesome as banners” is in the two other colors, the green and the black. Master of the world, in the four colors, three lines and Malchut, I will be looking to Your name HaVaYaH, where Yod-Hey-Vav is three lines, and the bottom Hey is Malchut who receives them, that You will redeem the Shechina.
39b. “Look, Lord, for the enemy has triumphed,” which is SAM. His eyes are crooked and his colors dark, and they do not look straight, to do good with the righteous in exile. Rather, he does good with the wicked, whose way is all crooked, who are the children of the primordial serpent, who killed the man, and does good to all the people who emerge from him.
40. The white color in the eyes is a serpent, the right of the Sitra Achra. The red color in them is resin, the left of the Sitra Achra. The green color, which consists of white and red, is a scorpion, the middle line of the Sitra Achra, the opposite of the middle line of holiness. The red color is thirst due to absence of water, the opposite of the Malchut of holiness.
41. All the colors of the eye of the wicked kill. It is written about them, “Do not eat the bread of an evil-eyed man, and do not crave his delicacies.” For this reason, it is forbidden for the holy nation to look at the wicked. The Torah of the holy nation should be covered from them, as it is written, “He has not dealt thus with any nation; and as for His sentences, they have not known them.” For this reason, the sentences, the Torah, must be covered from them.
42. Just as the dove needs guarding from the hawk, so the eyes, the doves of the righteous, need guarding from the eyes of the wicked ones, who are the mixed multitude, the children of wicked Lilit, who are harder than dealing mercy with the poor among the children of Israel, and who are crooked in all their ways, the children of the primordial serpent, since they are the filth that the serpent had cast in Eve.
43. The four evil colors in the eyes of the wicked are to put to death, and the four other colors in the eyes of the righteous are to bring to life. The two Cherubim of the eyes, the eyelids, NH, are the wings of the dove. This eye, the righteous, Yesod, is truly a dove. Righteous and justice, Yesod and Malchut, are male and female, like Tifferet and Malchut. From the side of the righteous, Yesod, Malchut is called “a dove.” From the side of Tifferet, Malchut is called “eye.”
44. The eagle is as it is written, “The way of the eagle in the sky,” that he has no fear from the fowls of the world since the eagle is the upper queen, Bina, whose governance is on good days and Shabbats [Sabbaths].
But the dove, Malchut, whose governance is in the six days of creation, and who is in exile, has no rest for her foot, since the children of Lilit, who are the filth of the serpent, it is written about them, “And the water prevailed exceedingly over the earth,” over Israel, of whom it is written, “And your descendants will be as the dust of the earth.” They prevail over them in the exile with beautiful women, beautiful children, wealth, and handsome garments.
45. Israel are poor in everything. They are black in everything. They are the daughters of the Shechina, of whom it is written, “Do not look at me, that I am dark,” in exile. They are the children of the one of whom it is written, “I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” The sky wears these garments because those wicked overcome them in the exile, for they look at them only with the evil eye.
It is written, “The cunning sees evil and hides,” like Noah, who hid in the ark. Similarly, Israel should cover from them in the exile with their garments, with their women, with their children, with their wealth. It is with good cause that the authors of the Mishnah said, “There is no blessing except in that which is covered from the eye.”
46. The serpent and the scorpion are blemishes in the eye. Crooked eyes in a person, which do not look straight, the slant serpent is there. Those who have the measuring line in them are not caught at all in that person, since he does not have the middle line in him, which is the straightness that leans neither to the right nor to the left. It is written about them, “and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined.”
Although Israel are in exile, and the leaders of the generation—who are like the heart and eyes of Israel—who are the Great Sanhedrin, since they perform harlotry and partake in lewdness, do not stray after them, for there is no faith in them.
47. One who has crooked eyes is a deceitful person. He entices people with his tongue like the serpent seduced Eve. He is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. With his mouth and with his words, he seems to be good, and in his heart are deceit and evil. Beware of him. It is written about him, “And you shall not eat from from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”